The Ice Man
by Rach shutup
Summary: Mycroft wondered if James Moriarty was what happened when little boys like Sherlock didn't have an older brother to protect them when their father had a bad day at work, had a drop too much to drink and turned violent.


Mycroft Holmes stares through the one way glass at the man occupying the cell behind it. It is relatively dark in there at the moment, lit just barely enough to be able to see the pale light highlighting his surprisingly delicate features. They're messing with his body clock, having the lights on and off at fairly random intervals to trick his body and mind into losing all concept of true time. It's a fast route to frustration, confusion and lethargy, and Mycroft knows it.

The man's eyes are closed and his whole body is relaxed, draped over the chair he's cuffed to like a lifeless ragdoll. It's most likely exhaustion. They've been at this for days, now, interrogating him, beating him, going through the A-Z of torture methods that won't cause any permanent damage – and that's key. Jim Moriarty's face, his body, is one of his finest assets. Not in _that_ way, mind you. He isn't the male criminal equivalent of a _bond girl_ by far. No, Jim Moriarty has a kind face, a gentle face. The way he moves, the way he speaks, his handwriting and the way he holds himself, it's all so utterly gentle.

And that's how he does it, that's how he makes people trust him, how he gets to people. He smiles, bats his eye lashes, and pours carefully selected sugary sweet words in peoples' ears, and that's it. They're sold. He comes across as being innocent and unassuming, persuades people that he's harmless and perhaps even a little bit fragile. He gives people what they want because he knows so well that they want because it's the same thing everyone wants:

To be noticed, to be heard, to be loved. To have power and control, even if it's all in their heads where Moriarty is concerned because one click of the man's fingers and they're dead before they hit the ground. He smiles his sad little smile and that's it, really, he's in.

His eyes flicker open suddenly and he gazes at the glass, his eyes dark and empty.

James Moriarty is, most certainly, damaged. Mycroft read all the files. A number of them had been destroyed in a fire of suspicious and yet unidentified origin that was never properly investigated. Fortunately, files had a tendency of being copied, backed up, just in case. Certain events were documented in different ways. A psychiatrist's report of an abused little boy tells the same story as a medical record detailing so,_ so_ many injuries and so many beatings. An incinerated house in Northern Ireland in which an angry drunk was burned alive, the result of copious amounts of kerosene being poured not on the man's face or torso, but on his crotch, tells a story of a little boy put through hell by a man who was supposed to protect him, tells the same story as a forced institutionalisation and a mental health record a mile long.

Mycroft has been toying with the idea of bringing James Moriarty's past into his interrogations. He had his men touch on it, once. Had them make a comment that only someone who had read the files or lived through their stories, would understand. That day had earned him the nickname "The Ice Man".

That's what James did, that's how James _coped_, by turning anyone who caused him harm into a monster, as if from a fairy tale. He made himself believe that anyone who made him bleed or tried to make him cry was the big bad wolf and nothing more, merely a monster needing to be slain. It was rather contradictory, in all honesty, because how many people had died at the hands of Moriarty himself? Yet he remained unbiased, he would never describe himself as being 'evil' or 'bad', and would get a strange glimmer of darkness in his eyes should anyone dare accuse him of being so.

He continues to stare into the darkness, at the mirror that Mycroft knows he can't see through, and yet feels watched all the same.

He hates to admit it, he thoroughly deeply hates to admit it, but James reminds him so much of his younger brother. All of the flirting, the jokes, the coy little smile and his alluring, lilting vocal patterns, it was all a disguise, really. A mask to shield to pain and abandon that hid behind his eyes, only quite visible if you looked hard enough, let yourself see past the dark almost-demonic emptiness that occupied them. Sherlock's defence mechanism was very different. He did the opposite of Jim. Rather than hide behind obscenely sweet flirtation and look at people half-lidded eyes, oozing over-the-top charm, Sherlock hid behind a mask of sociopathic indifference. He learned to control his facial expressions, his micro-expressions, and his body language. He mastered the look of brutal uncaring at a very young age, learned to act utterly, completely unaffected. Flirting and being 'nice' were only in Sherlock Holmes' repertoire if he needed them for something, usually manipulative purposes, to get information or something else he needed.

Mycroft wondered if James Moriarty was what happened when little boys like Sherlock didn't have an older brother to protect them when their father had a bad day at work, had a drop too much to drink and turned violent. If James Moriarty was what happened when a boy who knew far too much for his age was introduced to an overcrowded public school full of average or _below average_ children, without an older brother to pull the strings and make sure that his every educational demand was met and that anyone who crossed him would find themselves expelled or worse. He was what happened when a young genius didn't have an older brother who knew all the right people, making him able to get his sibling into one of the most prestigious private schools in the country, to protect him from bullies and monsters.

Perhaps, if James Moriarty had had someone to watch his back, someone to love him, then Carl Powers wouldn't have had to die. Perhaps the mad man would never have experimented with explosives, entered the criminal network and taken it over, found and sought solace in a violent borderline-psychopath with a dishonourable discharge under his belt. Perhaps he wouldn't be in this cage, drifting in between pain and unconsciousness, discovering new methods of torture every day and learning first-hand which ones were the most persuasive.

He glanced at James' fingers, noticed him doing that 'tapping' again. He wondered if it was a nervous tick, an entirely unconscious way of dealing with stress, or it was some kind of code or signal. It wasn't Morse code, the beats weren't regular enough. Binary code seemed to be the best bet, but as of yet his best analysts hadn't been able to uncover anything remotely useful. It reminded him a little of someone playing an invisible piano. Mycroft learned to play at a very young age, but he was never really into music. He pressed the keys at the right time, got every note perfect enough to pass any test, but never really got into it. He didn't imagine Moriarty to be the music loving type, either.

He had learned that was wrong when the man's phone had started ringing in his pocket, and the ringtone had been what he later discovered to be, "_Harder You Get_" by _The Scissor Sisters_. It had been Sebastian Moran, said borderline psychopath, with a sniper rifle trained on Sherlock's head. In fact, there were three gunmen including Moran, as well as four assassins, all caught up in Moriarty's web and all following his younger brother, all ready to pull the trigger without a moment's notice. The orders were simple: Release Jim or your brother and his friends will die.

They gave him 12 hours, 7 had passed. It was the middle of the night, pitch black outside. Jim would be released first thing in the morning. He swallowed hard before opening the door to Jim's cell for what would most likely be the last of their little conversations. Jim bowed his head, closing his eyes as Mycroft circled him, before stopping to lean against a nearby wall, ignoring the carved scribbles of his brother's name that littered the walls.

"Ice Man." He said in a low whisper, voice still cracked from the _treatment_ he had received earlier that day. "To what do I owe the pleasure?" His eyes flicked open at that point, dancing over Mycroft, sizing him up, before stopping at his eyes.

"I'd be surprised if you didn't already know." He stopped, looked at Moriarty, waiting for his response. When there was none, he continued. "You're being released in the morning".

A smile ghosted over his lips as he closed his eyes, his body visibly becoming less rigid, less tense. Relief seemed like such an overly human reaction to see on someone as inhuman as Moriarty, but it was there all the same.

"I have a secret to tell you." He said finally, not opening his eyes.

Mycroft played with the fabric on his shirt, made himself look as disinterested as possible. Often, a good way to make James' talk was to make him think that you were bored of him. He hated boring people, and evidently couldn't stand the thought of being one. "Oh?"

"I don't think you'll like it very much." His soft smile turned into a one-sided, excited grin. "In fact, I don't think you will like it at all." He tilted his head to the side in a reptilian fashion, flashing his teeth like a Cheshire cat, his broken lip splitting and oozing blood slowly, staining his teeth, before relaxing his mouth once more in to a soft smile. He looked at Mycroft with the most innocent expression on his face as he could possibly muster, blinked those big sad eyes a few times, batting his eyelashes, and then spoke in that soft, Irish drawl:

"_There is no code, honey." _


End file.
